The thought of a good bowl of fishball handmade to perfection makes me tremble with delight, most of the trembling originates from the tummy, of course! Song Wan is one of those places. Uncle Lim spends a greater part of the afternoon expertly mashing the fish meat together to form hundreds of his magical balls. His fishballs I mean. And I was assured that it is the real thing. When I visited him in the afternoon as he was turning the fish meat into a gluey paste .
They use Ikan Panjang or Sai Toh ( Cantonese) fish to make the fish balls,and a lot of work goes into making the balls as Sai Toh can be very bony. But his efforts pay off in spades. His fishballs are springy, but not like the artificial bounciness you get from supermarket brands. Uncle Lim's fishballs retain the sweetness of the fish with an ever-present fish flavours, fishball lovers crave. Sooooo delicious...The soup Uncle Lim uses with the noodles does not have MSG. His trick is to supplement the soup with soy bean (soup boiled with soy bean). I don't know how he does it, but Uncle Lim is definitely an old hand at this game.
"The fishballs retain fishy sweetness"
Fishcakes are not always available but he says if you come before 9am during the weekends, you should be able to get some. But don't quote me on this. The Fishcake slices are really delicious and he claims that his fishcakes have an "Abalone" taste. Well, I am not sure I agree with Uncle Lim there as eating the cake does not conjure images of abalone but it is definitely a very tasty piece of fishcake. Also good is their "Yu Kau" - fish dumpling. The skin is made of flour and some sago hence (you get) a really smooth texture of the dumpling. It also has a strong briny taste from the fish meat in it. Excellent stuff! If you don't come here, you're missing out, big time!
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